There was a place I knelt
In the light of chicken feathers,
And heard the song of God
Pouring from rain frogs in day lilies.

There was a bark bench in a wood
Underneath an apple-cedar rusted tree
That yielded its slimy children to me
Whenever I needed entertaining.

There was a rabbit that did not run
Immediately, but stilled and watched,
Nose twitching in apprehension, as if
Maybe I was no interloper, no enemy.

These things were -
And some still are -
Though I no longer remember
The path to the fallen pine
Or the hiding place of the rabbit’s burrow,
And the tree has been burned up
For many years.

There are pangs of hunger in me,
Not to hear God in the day lilies
(For I am still shaking from the sound),
But to find in myself the
Absolute wonder that I found
Inside a circle of roses.

Knives are slippery things and
No matter what handle they bear,
They are sure to find themselves
In flesh sometimes, by mistake.

When a human hand is wounded,
And blood flows, and a voice cries
Out in pain from the whole body,
It is still the hand that must heal itself.
The valiant cells who die to bridge
The new rift must drift from their
Places near the cut. The brain can -
At first - do nothing but tell itself
How the hand suffers, but

Then comes the second reaction.
Then comes the instinct so buried
That it is not even a thought.
Blood is needed, so the marrow works
In the hands and the arms and
The chest and even as far as
The legs and feet. Infection will try
To sneak in - the brain knows this
The way canyons remember rivers.

So then come the blood cells,
Red and white, to defend their new
Homeland, (or their new home,
Since they are all of one being,
One great and unbroken body.)
Fever may come, or not; a scar
Might form that never fades, but
The hand never forgets that it is made
From the stitched skeletons of saviors.

And despite knives, the body prospers.
One hand bandages another, one foot
Bears the full weight while the other heals,
The body survives: not unchanged, but
So tempered and hardened in the changing
That it has no need for fear of knives.

There stood Colossus gripping tightly
At his injured head and whimpering,
Hemorrhaged for centuries and crumbled
Down to the crying blocks below,
To the crying nation below.

There stood tragedy in her nightclothes,
Caught unaware and unprepared,
But still willing to give the boys a show.
There drifts the smoke and burned up men.
There falls the mighty God of Rhodes.

Hanging now is the thick dust that blinds,
Hanging now is Comedy’s tired head, weeping
From sadness and silence and the ****** dust.
In the roads, the people stand and scream,
In their homes, the people sit and mourn.

Televisions show the Colossus fall,
But the only sound is a news anchor, bawling.
The crushing concrete quenches some
Of the hungry fire, and unofficial officials
Dive into the carcass for survivors.

The Hudson washes down the morning
With debris; and somewhere far off
I am seven, looking at the walls,
Wondering why our class
Doesn’t get a TV.

For North,
Wake up at 12:00 to the smell
Of cheese frying in a pan of butter
And bread turning to toast,
Get out of bed. Go into the kitchen.
There's a broad, straight back
Drifting down from near-straight shoulders,
Burying itself in an apron around his waist.
Smile and hear the words "Good morning!"
Try to remember last night.
Try too hard and wake up.

The sun in the east has a message
And delivers it to the west,
But the North and South were burned
And never venture close enough
To read the words.

For South,
Wake up at 9:00 to the smell
Of salt and dust. Wake hungry.
Stare upwards at the ceiling stains,
Stare sideways at the peeling paper
On the walls. Remember how she hated it.
Sit up. Lay down. Breathe. Do not think.
Get up again. Take an aspirin for the headache.
Drink a beer for the headache.
Go to the filthy kitchen and try
Not to make a grilled cheese.
Hear a dog bark. Contemplate canine ******.

Long for her, long for him.
Long for the cruelest lingering touch.
Wish for her eyes; wish for his smile,
And languish in the arms of a dream.
Whisper to no one in the voice
Of the world's most beautiful folie à deux,
And shut your ears to all you cannot hear.

If Our mad dances slow to dirges
And the dark barges in on the stars,
If yours and mine is Ours no more
And shy, pale-faced reminders sigh
Behind the back door a-nights, then
I shan’t write another word for you,
Nor for me, nor Us, nor anyone.

If Our wild eyes and frisky paws
Are stilled into purposeful tools,
And Our twittering, jabbering jaws
Lock up in the great presence of fools,
Then I will shut up my heart’s blood
Inside some useless pen. I will forget
What We were - what you have been.

I will charge myself with this heaviest
Of oaths: when We are no more alight
And the stars still shine,
And the flowers blossom,
And new babies are born,
And the pointless world still shakes with joy,
Then I shall write no more.

For when We are not, what happiness
Is there more than a choked off laugh
In a silent void?

Hey, Achilles, what’s it like
To die from an arrow you didn’t see?
Hey, hey, happy stuttering Hercules
What’s it like to be mad and ****
The woman you love,
The children you love,
What’s it like to watch terror born
On the faces of helpless thousands
And be counted in those thousands
As defenseless? What’s it like,
Hercules, to be loved, to be a hero,
To be unstoppably strong and
Uncorrectable? (In the back of your head
There’s a voice) Pleading with
Wreckage in the making and
Begging your arms not to swing,
Your hands not to squeeze,
Your lungs to stop breathing
Long enough to faint and later wake
With sense and reason?
Do you ever want to die?
No, no. “Dying is for fools,” you say.

You are a legendary fool in paper armor,
Tilting at windmills and running from smiles;
You are happy, blind, and wounded
In the ruins of a diseased world.

There’s no fear in the place
I’m going to be in a few years,
In the time it takes to tune a piano,
In the decades of a dog’s wagging tail.
There’s nothing scary there.

When I’m as many years older
As there are seconds in a lightyear,
Or sound waves in wallpaper,
I’ll still be ****-a-doodle-doing perfectly
Dandy in a yellow-spotted bouncy way.

When I’ve said and written as many
Words as there are to say on an afternoon,
And when my heart’s as old and big
As orange and gold, as great as
A slide whistle going up, up, up, then,

I’ll see what I saw when I was
The size of a bright laugh:
That all the world, in its infantile grace,
(Even the places nearly shaded from sight)
Is bursting with unexplainable light.